


The Way Back Begins with a Broken Heart

by used_songs



Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-20
Updated: 2010-03-20
Packaged: 2017-10-08 04:07:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/72531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/used_songs/pseuds/used_songs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ianto's moods can be volatile; Jack finds out why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Way Back Begins with a Broken Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Beta: redsnake05  
> Prompt from: rounds_of_kink  
> Prompt by: thefannishwaldo  
> Kink: Abuse (sexual, emotional, and/or violent childhood abuse, the wounded child as an adult archetype)

The first time … it doesn't hurt as much as he remembers. Even though it is betrayal. Even though he came here planning to betray Jack. Even though he has already betrayed her – betrayed her the first time he touched Jack. And he is betraying himself, in a sense. But there is a swiftness and a loss of control that is exhilarating. That takes his breath away.

Afterwards, there will be enough time for him to punish himself. To make himself regret. Right now he is so shocked and relieved that there is no force that he enjoys himself.

Even when the hands feel the same and the pressure is the same and when the fear bubbles up into his throat the same and chokes him a little. It is easy to pass it off as excitement. As desire. And there is some desire there, too – that is what must be punished afterwards.

The fist comes down. There is no way to get out from under.

His mother is crying in the dim light of the kitchen, alone, broken plates on the floor in ribbons of white porcelain, a cracked cup in her hands. His father is raging, wanting to know who they are, who Ianto is. He is hiding, pressed back against the wall, the smooth paper under his hands, wondering how it is that his father does not know him. Lost.

The fist comes down. There is no way to get out from under.

Jack leans into the kiss, peering at him, careful hands brushing away the momentary tightening that betrays his fear, the flinch, "OK there, Ianto?" he murmurs into the other man's mouth.

Ianto mutters what might have been a yes and drags Jack impossibly closer, hands under his braces pushing them free, the rough material scrubbing over the backs of his knuckles, catching on his skin, smooth blue cotton brushing under his palms, cold fingers unfastening buttons, their edges prying at his nails, pulling Jack into him. Backing into the curve of the wall, whitewashed bricks uneven against his shoulders.

Jack laughs, "Eager?" He looks straight into Ianto's eyes, smiling, radiating heat and want. "Because I am." He says it with a voice that is breaking a little, crackling like electricity coming to ground.

He says, "Touch me, Jack." Getting past it. Getting past. He cannot breathe. He is drowning. Jack is air and life and light, flowing into him but he is still unable to breathe, crushed by the sea, pushed by inexorable tides. He is gasping, almost hyperventilating, as Jack roughly pulls his jacket off, forcing it over his shoulders, pinning him to the wall, yanking his shirt tail out and running hands up over his body, tugging his zipper down. He is drinking down the cool air now, intoxicated and burning, because if he doesn't breathe he'll die. Jack's mouth is there and everywhere and he is drinking in the light. The thing that holds him around the throat, that shoves him deep inside himself, that thing is merely watching now and waiting.

"Like this, Ianto?" Jack breaths, quirking an eyebrow. "Like this?" His voice is rough, his breath catching, smooth lips brushing over the exposed skin at Ianto's throat, a hint of teeth that means a smile. The curve of his throat, aching and arcing with sparks. His breathing uneven. Still a little anger there, mixed with the desire – the wasp sting of mutual betrayal making their skin sore.

And Jack touches, shoves down pants and boxers, grinds his hips against him, his hand there too, cupping, touching, pressing, and another hand holding at the back of his head, pulling him forward, possessively. Skin against aching skin. Breaking him, bending him. His throat tightens.

He can't breathe. He can't. Get past it.

"Yes," he murmurs, pushing down the fear, back into his chest, heavy and buried, drowning, a school of individual panicked flashes turning this way and that through the sunlight that pierces the waves. "Touch me." The wall behind him as Jack touches him, he lets his head fall to the side and lets go.

The fist comes down. There is no way to get out from under.

"Ianto, your dad is going to … be away for a while. They've accepted him at Providence Park, just until he's better. So I've asked my brother, your Uncle Tom, to stay on with us. It'll be a great help to me," she says, not looking at him. The kitchen smells of lemons and bread. The curtains in the window have just been brought in and hung up and they gleam like sunlight. A door creaks softly.

"But …" he trails off, looking down at the oilcloth on the table. He forces his hands to lie flat and the surface of the table pitches slightly, uneven stones beneath it, he is dizzy. His father's hands. All of what used to be. What is. What will be.

"Just stay clear of him when he's been drinking, and it'll be fine." She tosses the dish towel onto the countertop and leans against the edge, wet hands with chapped knuckles gripping the edges. "It'll be all right," she says quietly.

The fist comes down. There is no way to get out from under.

I am a secret, he thinks. Jack pushes him down into the bed roughly. Ianto laughs and Jack pauses, smiling hesitantly, fondly maybe. It's difficult to know, he thinks, looking up into blue eyes.

How do we know what we feel, he wonders. Ianto looks again into darkness, gravity yanking him down suddenly.

Jack slows down a little but still strips him thoroughly. Slides over him. Burns him with the coolness of his skin. "Do you want me, Ianto Jones?" he asks diving into the hollow in his neck and then he comes up for air.

Ianto looks up then, wincing into the light. Desire rises up, waves washing over, overcomes him until he can't speak, the pressure in his head pushing at his eyes, making his heart pound, and he raises his hands, framing Jack's face, confusion, wondering. He raises his hips, moving swiftly, slowly. He pulls Jack back down to him and kisses him as Jack drags lazy potent fingers through the resisting air and over his sides and stomach. As Jack slides back down and swallows him whole. As Jack brings the light. As Jack crashes over him.

The fist comes down. There is no way to get out from under.

The dragging stumbling in the hall, vague thumps as hands seek support against walls, picture frames rattling.

He wakes from light sleep and tenses, his hands cold. The lights flash on and Ianto buries his head in the pillow, tries to hide. The voice. "I thought I told you this room was to be perfect when I got home. It's a fucking pig sty. Clean it again."

A hard hand dragging him up, pulling him close, sheets and blanket falling to the floor, pulled too close. Holding him. Touching. Intimate and wrong. Then thrusting him away, breathless, stumbling, hitting the desk and knocking down books and falling to his knees. "Now," the man demands.

The man stands in the doorway, watching. Hungry. His eyes. The air is still. He is on his knees still.

All of his dreams are of this now. The other rage was better, all things considered. Better to be forgotten.

The fist comes down. There is no way to get out from under.

The worst part isn't the demented smile or the baseball bat or the cleaver or the choking filthy bag over his head. It isn't his hands tied behind his back, hurting, although that's part of it. It isn't even impending death or the loneliness of it all. And it isn't the idea of being eaten, although that's pretty bad.

It's the helplessness. The same helplessness he feels as he stumbles through shattered hallways searching. The same helplessness he feels, watching his father's irrational and desolate anger ebb and flow, washing through him and out of his control, pulling out all of the brackish rage he has hidden away. The same helplessness he feels when he hears his mother cry at night, lost.

The same helplessness he feels when he looks up from his homework and sees hard eyes staring at him from the doorway, large hands braced against the wooden frame, blunt fingers curled into the grooves. Schoolwork forgotten. Looking at his own hands resting on the scarred surface of the desk. Dread rising. Loss of control, the water spinning him away to drown.

If I could only have controlled all of that, he thinks, things would've been different. He kneels in dirt and blood, helpless.

The fist comes down. There is no way to get out from under.

"Weren't you supposed to clean the house while your mum was at work?" The voice is rough and angry, seeking the cracks in him, looking for a way to worm in, weathering him away.

"I did." He is short. He has cleaned it – a compulsion fostered on Ianto through repetition. His hands shake.

"Don't talk back to me, you. I've had enough of that." The menace in the tone makes his skin crawl and now he backs away.

"Come here." A fast step forward and hands are reaching, fingers digging into his arm, pulling him forward and then forcing him down onto the floor, a heavy weight on top of him, this is it. What he has been waiting for today. An excuse to force him down. Force. Rough skin and whispered denial. Heaviness all through him.

The floor is cold. Falling far.

And breaking is made of long moments stretched apart. Putting back together takes even longer. He anchors himself to the world with one hand wrapped tightly around the leg of a chair, leaving fingermarks embedded in the hard carved wood.

At the end. Finally. A hand over his mouth, holding his breath in. "Don't tell your mother. She has enough to worry about with your dad." He stands up and fastens his belt. Leaves. The floor is still cold. He gets up. He leaves, too. Nothing left.

He buries himself in blankets until he can hardly breathe, burning and turning away from himself. He leaves.

The fist comes down. There is no way to get out from under.

Is this what it is, he wonders. I betrayed her for an empty coat that smells like you. Is it because I pushed you away while I was clinging to you with both hands?

He stands in the dark, his hands clenched into fists. This is the punishment for wanting what wasn't meant to be, set on one path but walking another. You leave.

The fist comes down. There is no way to get out from under.

She cries, holding him, knowing. She says, "It will get better, love. It has to."

He whispers, hardly daring, his heart is beating, "Send him away. We don't need him." Under his shirt there are bruises. Under his skin anger hisses, twisting into ropes of snakes.

She says, holding him so close that he hurts, "I can't. I can't do this by myself."

And he knows that, in a way, he is not there either.

The fist comes down. There is no way to get out from under.

Third date since Jack returned and they are getting good at this. Easy and sweet. "I came back for you," and it's easy to believe and to think that someone might actually come back after they've gone. Jack swinging him around as they tumble laughing through his flat door, a slight tang of alcohol on the breath, fumbling to lock themselves in, keys falling to the floor and they are bumping into the hall table. Pressing him against the wall, picture frames digging into his back, delicious, hands dragging under his jacket, his shirt, touching skin, touching desire, Jack pressing up against him his breath catching in his throat, hands holding, hands holding him down, hands. Then suddenly he is struggling, trying to breathe, choking. Trying to escape. Pushing. Mindless. Fear.

"Hey … hey …" Jack backing away, hands … hands raised. "Ianto?"

Rage exploding outwards. Framed pictures smashed, shards of glass flying, and Jack shielding his face, looking frightened. Trying. Trying to reach him – hold him.

"Don't touch me. Don't touch me."

"What is it?" Now Jack is panicking. "What is it?"

The fist comes down. There is no way to get out from under.

"There's something a bit off about that boy – a touch of his father maybe. I'd keep an eye on that if I were you." He hears the sound of a heavy glass placed on the table, chairs creaking as his mother leans forward and sighs. "I'm just trying to help you out here."

He rests against the wall just outside the kitchen, in the dark, light spilling through the doorway. A bit off.

I have to get out of here, he thinks. Go somewhere.

The fist comes down. There is no way to get out from under.

He doesn't talk about it. For a long time after, Jack is abashed. Gentle. Afraid. It takes so long to get up the courage to touch. Lets Ianto make the first move every time. Regardless. Until it is somewhat sweet again, but always with a tiny price to pay in the end.

But Jack sometimes doesn't like to talk either. And he has his share of half remembered pains, too. So it's all right. Really.

The fist comes down. There is no way to get out from under.

When he goes to see his father, it's as if neither one of them is there.

The fist comes down. There is no way to get out from under.

He is lost. He is gone, maybe to that place his father once went to. Standing outside of himself and helpless. Watching it unfold, watching himself be washed away.

The man below Jack stiffens and, as he watches, his face breaks and all that is Ianto bleeds out of cracking eyes, only a mask left. Panic. Raw. Muscles as tight as a seizure, not breathing.

"Ianto!" calls Jack. The body under Jack's heaves in desperation, gasping now, hands scrabbling, muscles tightly clenched, a soundless no writ over his face. Pushing him off. Pushing him away.

The suddenly he is back in that heaving body and he is crying, a little bit, and it is not all right. Not at all. It isn't fine. It never will be. But. But Jack is tentatively coming back and reaching out an innocent hand and Ianto reaches back … a little. Just a little. It's enough. Now Jack is here, closer than before, and he is looking into worried eyes. What he sees. He sees a past that cannot change. He sees all of that betrayal. He sees all of that loneliness.

"Jack," he says, choking.

Silent regard. Warmth.

"Jack."

The fist comes down. There is no way to get out from under.

"Ianto, you don't have to leave," his mother says softly. "It'll be all right. Your dad will come home and –." Outside the crickets are crying in the summer wind. Tree limbs brush and thump against the side of the house, dragging.

"I don't think so, Mom," he replies, closing the case, his hands resting on the lid. He turns to look at her, pulling his jacket close.

"I've sent Tom home," she whispers, twisting her fingers together. "I'm sorry."

He is still, thinking. Then. "I have to go. I have a train to catch." He looks at his watch.

"Call me sometime, Ianto. So I'll know you're all right." He nods.

He hefts the case and walks through the doorway.

The fist comes down. There is no way to get out from under.

"So … Providence Park?" They are alone in the Hub, standing in the half light. The water runs down the wall and sparkles in the pool. The air is still.

Ianto looks back at him, his face giving nothing away.

"Are you going to tell me?" Jack waits.

"There's nothing to tell."

"Somehow I doubt that. You're a secretive man, Mr. Jones." He is playing, but also serious.

"Likewise."

Long pause.

"So then can we talk about the other thing?"

He feels himself grow empty, a being made of air, and he sags onto the couch. Jack moves over to sit next to him.

"I'm worried about you, Ianto." Jack doesn't touch. He's unsure again.

"I …" Ianto tries. "I can't…"

"What?"

"I can't breathe, Jack," it rushes out. "I can't breathe. Whenever I try to say … I can't get enough air. It's on my chest. Holding me down."

Jack risks a light arm over his shoulders. "Can you tell me?"

"I don't know." He lets his head drop. "I've never said it … never even written it down." He looks sideways, a little, away.

"That night at your flat … when you smashed the pictures and broke the table. I've never seen you lose control like that." Jack curls his hand protectively around his shoulder and hugs him so slightly. "I think we need to talk about that because, as far as I could see, it came out of nowhere."

"Yeah. Nowhere."

"You said, 'Don't touch me.' Ianto, have I hurt you?"

"No, Jack. Not like that." And Jack winces at the truth. The kind of hurt that is expected and accepted. He slides off the edge of the couch and kneels at Ianto's knees. Looking up at him.

"Tell me."


End file.
